


Did or Suffered Aught Disgraceful

by Devilc



Category: Clash of the Titans (2010)
Genre: Age Difference, Ancient History, First Time, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Pederasty, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eusebios is a youth and learns how it is between men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did or Suffered Aught Disgraceful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bakcheia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakcheia/gifts).



> The request was: "I spent most of this film hoping some good old fashioned greek love would happen between Eusebios and well, anybody, but it was Hollywood, so it didn't. I don't mind how explicit/non-explicit it is, it would just be wonderful to see it."
> 
> Since the source is a mashup of Ancient History and Classical Greco-Roman mythology, I felt free to do a bit of a mash up with history myself, picking and choosing from the smorgasbord which tidbits to put on this plate. I hope the recipient enjoys.
> 
> (Sorry that the story is unbeta'd, but I finished only shortly before midnight EST. Spellchecked, yes. I promise to go back and revise after it goes live and my wrists no longer hurt so badly.)

>   
> "Perish miserably they who think that these men did or suffered aught disgraceful."  
>  _~Philip II of Macedon, on the Theban Band_  
> 

* * *

  
When he was 12, Eusebios's father took him to the barracks of the Praetorian Guard. He wore his good chiton for it would not do for the master in charge of the pages to think that Eusebios was an unwanted son, or that he had no other options. A sentry led them to the office of the Ouragos, Draco. Eusebios stood still and tried not to stare or fidget as they waited for Draco to look up from the wax tablet he was reading. Through the window Eusebios could see the hoplites of the guard training. A man, fair of face like the heroes the poets spoke up, moved through the drills with an ease and grace that thrilled Eusebios.

He wanted to be that man.

_He would be that man._

Eusebios had tried to talk his parents into apprenticing him to the guard at the age of 10, the earliest they would take boys as pages, but his mother would not hear of it and his father relented, for Eusebios was her last child, and his birth had nearly killed her, _and_ he had come on the night of a full moon with a caul over his head, and everybody knew that was a powerful portent.

But his 12th spring had come and not even his mother's tears could sway his father this time.

He tried to pay attention to the conversation between his father and the Ouragos, but his eyes kept tracking the hoplite.

" ... my two older sons are following in my wake. Kastor has his own boat, a small one to be sure, but it is his, and Amykles will before too long, the Gods willing. But this one --" his father tousled his hair, which made Eusebios scowl, for he wasn't some child underfoot. He was 12, closer to being a man than not. "Eusebios has never cast his eyes towards the sea."

He stood very still as Draco eyed him up and down. "A bit small, isn't he?" the Ouragos said after a moment. Eusebios felt his cheeks flame. He had always been small for his age and pretty like girl, too. But being taken as a page and then becoming a hoplite of the guard would change that.

He hoped.

His father's voice came, deep and steadfast. "Give him a year or two. He'll shoot up like a tree. In the mean time, this boy, he's a scrapper. I've seen him make boys half again his age regret thinking they could bully him."

Draco hmmned.

"Take him and you'll see he's got what a good soldier really needs."

"Oh?" Draco shifted on his chair and started to reach for a blank tablet. "And what's that?"

"Heart," Eusebios blurted before he could stop himself. "I may be small right now, but I have the heart of a lion," he finished quickly.

In the stillness that followed, he waited for the reprimand from both his father and the Ouragos, but instead Draco threw back his head and laughed. "Bold as brass, I see." He gestured. "Come here boy."

Eusebios took a deep breath and walked to the table. Draco's hand, large and calloused, bearing more than one set of scars across the knuckles, shot out and grabbed his chin. "Look at me, _boy_ ," Draco demanded. "Brass is bold and shiny, but it's not worth a damn on the field. It's soft. Are you soft, _boy_?" he all but spat the last word.

Eusebios said nothing, just met that flinty glare with a steely one of his own.

Draco released his hand. "You apprentice to this guard, you start with the Decadarchos, Solon, and under him you'll see that your last easy day was yesterday. Do you understand?"

"Yes Ouragos!" He meant it to sound firm and manly, but his voice broke in the middle, making him squawk the last syllable.

"I take it I should send for his things?" Eusebios's father asked, relief and pride in his voice.

To Eusebios, Draco said, "Your chiton. Strip it off." To his father he said, "No need. The Praetorian Guard provides its sons with everything they need."

Draco's eyes flicked from the chiton in Eusebios's hand to his father, so Eusebios walked to his father and handed him the garment.

"Do your duty, son," his father said.

"Always."

A hoplite came for him and as he was lead to Solon, the Decadarchos, Eusebios felt the eyes of several men on him, taking his measure, weighing him, appraising.

His own eyes did the same.

He supposed that some boys in this position might feel small or intimidated from being paraded naked in front of the soldiers and pages like this.

It made Eusebios feel like he had potential.

* * *

His new chiton was made of a mixture of linen and wool. It was coarse and it itched and it smelled faintly of the piss it had been soaked in to clean it. He tried not to scratch, but of course when he couldn't stand it any longer and gave in, the hoplite he'd noticed earlier, the one who looked and moved like a hero out of the poets' epics, was looking right at him.

His eyes met Eusebios's and he smiled with knowing amusement.

Later he found out from Jaxartes, a page who had been there only three months, that very few people could meet Draco's "eyes of the dragon" stare without flinching or looking aside, and that the hoplite he'd noticed earlier wasn't a hoplite, but a Decasteros under Solon, and that his name was Ixas.

* * *

When he was 15 and had put on three handspans in height and was starting to fill out with lean muscle, a man's muscle, Draco came to him. "You've grown, boy."

"Like my father said I would." Eusebios tried to keep his voice solemn, but a grin forced its way out.

Draco grunted. "That he did." He looked out upon the men practicing upon the sands of the practice field. Eusebios immediately picked out Ixas, no longer a Descasteros, but now a Dimoerites. He would be an Ouragos one day, Eusebios felt sure of it. Draco, as was his way, took it all in, appearing to pay attention to nothing in particular but seeing everything. Taking Eusebios by the arm, he lead him away, saying, "We need to talk, lad."

They ended up seated in a small courtyard beneath a blossoming quince tree.

"May I ask you a question, Ouragos?" Eusebios said as soon as he could see Draco's hesitation.

Draco blinked. "You may."

"Are you going to ask me to be your erastes?"

Draco gave a short, strangled bark of laughter. "No. Why do you ask that?"

"You've been --" Eusebios swallowed hard. He would need to choose his words carefully to avoid offending. "I've noticed you studying me." He lifted his chin. "It would be a great honor."

"A great honor, but," Draco corrected and Eusebios felt his face flame. "No, there is another. Ixas, who was my erastes in his time, he intends to ask you."

Eusebios felt his face flame even harder.

Draco laughed, but not unkindly, "I need not ask if his attentions are welcome, then."

"I ... I ..." but Eusebios could not get the words out. He had always been drawn to Ixas, but lately it was different. He felt his mouth grow dry and his stomach flutter and lurch and the last time he and his cohort had trained with Ixas, Eusebios found himself so distracted by his nearness, and the shape of his lips, and the way his chiton draped over the curve of his thighs, and his hair gleamed in the sun, and the smell of him -- the salt of a good clean sweat, only tinged with something deeper -- that he dropped his xiphos, twice, nearly cutting off his toes.

Ixas sent him to the healer.

Draco laid his hand on Eusebios's leg, just above the knee. "Don't be too eager. Play hard to get. Ixas's pretty face has all the girls fawning over him. Make him _earn_ your favor, Eusebios. He'll value you the more for it."

Eusebios looked Draco in the eye. "Oh, I will, Ouragos," he vowed. "I will."

* * *

"I've gotten us a room," Ixas said.

So, tonight then.

True to his vow to Draco, Eusebios had made Ixas earn the right to be his eromenos.

It was the hardest, most frustrating thing he had ever done, because he wanted to be with Ixas, and kiss him as much as Ixas as much as Ixas wanted to kiss him. He held his ground, allowing Ixas only a few chaste kisses and caresses.

Perhaps it was for the best, because Eusebios struggled to control himself when alone with Ixas, and their encounters left him hard and aching with want until he could find a quiet place to spill his seed.

Ixas's gifts to him were likewise modest: a bag of walnuts; a plate of soft white cheese drizzled with honey, a small earthenware jar of wine stoppered with wax and straw -- which contained the best retsina Eusebios had ever drunk -- and even a new chiton, the fabric of much higher quality than the one issued him as a page.

"I have something else for you," Ixas said, his eyes glowing with excitement and pride as he held out a bundle.

It was heavy, the fabric surrounding something long and solid -- Eusebios gasped softly. "Dimoretes ...."

"Open it and see."

It wasn't a xiphos, like Eusebios thought it would be, but a kopis.

"You do me _great_ honor," Eusebios said as his hand curled around the hilt. He stepped back and took a few swings, getting used to the heft, the length, the curve of blade, the way it was thickest at the tip changed the balance. The kopis was a pure slashing sword, almost nothing like the xiphos. Every hoplite learned the the spear, the shield and the xiphos. But only a few of the Praetorian Guard were judged worthy of becoming cavalry and wielding their distinctive curved swords. "Dimoretes ..." he whispered again, voice trailing off.

This gift had cost Ixas at least a year's pay.

Ixas stepped in and said quietly, "When we are together, in private like this, you must call me by my name."

Eusebios stood straight, his heart swelling with pride at seeing tangible proof of Ixas's regard. "I don't know how to thank you for a gift like this."

Ixas grinned back at him. "Draco gave me mine." He tapped the hilt at his side. "I thought it a good tradition to continue."

* * *

Eusebios wore the chiton Ixas gave him to the room that Ixas had rented for their first time together as erastes and eromenos. The subtle scent of rosemary filled the air as Ixas waited for him, leaning against a table. The light of the lamps, flickering, revealed as much as it hid, making Ixas's handsomeness seem exotic and almost otherworldly.

"Come here," Ixas said, rising.

Trembling, but not from fear, rather excitement, Eusebios crossed to Ixas and accepted his embrace and his kiss. A real kiss, not chaste, but a deep one that allowed him to taste the mint that Ixas had chewed to sweeten his breath.

As for the embrace, for the first time they stood body pressed to body, and Eusebios delighted in feeling the strength and power of Ixas, a strength that had always reminded him of a panther, poised to strike.

Ixas deepened the kiss, his hands stroking up and down Eusebios's back, moving down to cup his buttocks through the chiton as he pulled them closer, Ixas's hard, heated sex pushing up between them through the fabric of their clothes.

Eusebios did not break the kiss as Ixas's hands dropped to the tie of his girdle, unknotted it, and let it fall to the floor. Uncertain of what he should do, but only knowing that he must not appear too eager, Eusebios tore his lips from Ixas's and worked at the knot of his girdle, the both of them laughing as Eusebios could not make his fingers obey, but, in the end, he did get the nigh-Gordian Knot undone and Ixas's girdle slid free.

As soon as it hit the floor, Eusebios felt Ixas's hands at his shoulders, working clasps that held the top edges of his chiton together. Moments later the fabric slid free and Ixas placed the clasps on the table, next to a small bowl of oil. Eusebios stood, naked and proud as Ixas stepped back an arms-length, eyes roving hungrily over Eusebios's body. A frown marred his face when his gaze fell at last on the junction of Eusebios's legs. "What's this?" he asked, bending to get a closer look at the bindings Eusebios had placed on himself.

He had hoped that Ixas would understand and not ask. "I ... I did not want to shame myself," Eusebios forced the words out of a sand dry mouth. At Ixas's baffled expression, he continued, "The philosophers say that the erastes --"

"And here I thought I was doing something wrong earlier when I could not feel the evidence of your desire," Ixas murmured as he reached for the leather cord that Eusebios had looped around the base and shaft of his sex to prevent its swelling. "Eusebios," he said gently, "the philosophers say a lot of things. _A lot_ of things." He carefully unwound the cord and in what seemed like two heartbeats, Eusebios swelled to his full length. "There now, that's better," Ixas said under his breath. He reached out and stroked his index finger the length of Eusebios, from root to tip, causing Eusebios to shudder and gasp as his cock twitched and a single drop of clear fluid spurted from the tip. Eusebios could not contain the moan as Ixas gently slid his foreskin down, causing several fresh oozings of fluid, which Ixas used to wet his finger before he delicately revolved it around the corona, and this time Eusebios cried out and overbalanced, clutching at Ixas, because it felt so good. " _Much better_ ," Ixas murmured, carding his other hand into Eusebios's curls and kissing the crown of his head.

Ixas dipped his hand in the oil and Eusebios groaned bone-deep as Ixas's hand clenched slick-hot-hard around his shaft and pumped in a long, firm stroke. To Eusebios's utter dismay, he could not contain his desire at the sight and feel of Ixas's fist around his cock, and, on the second stroke, shaking like a man with the falling sickness, he spilled his seed all over Ixas's hand and also on his chiton.

Ixas, however, seemed not to notice the mess, for he kept up a gentle stroking, milking the last of Eusebios's spendings with the one hand, while his other curled around the now wobbly-legged Eusebios's shoulders and drew him in as he whispered in his ear, "Yes, that's it, that's it, just like that," and when it was all done and Eusebios had involuntarily jerked his hips back, pulling himself out of Ixas's hand because his sex was just too tender, Ixas tenderly cupped his chin and said, "Be glad you are a man and do not have to gather the first honey off the thorns the way a woman does."

Eusebios nodded breathlessly, but didn't know what to say to that, for he had not yet tumbled one of the kitchen maids.

"And now, me," Ixas unclasped his chiton and let it fall to the floor.

Eusebios could not stop his quick intake of breath. His mouth flooded with saliva and he felt twinges deep in his groin as his own cock attempted to stir at the sight of such rampantness.

Ixas shrugged as if to say "it is what it is" and pulled Eusebios down with him onto the pallet, rolling Eusebios on his side, facing away from him. "I find it easier to do from this position," Ixas explained from over Eusebios's shoulder. "Some like to do it with their erastes propped against a table, but --" and Eusebios could hear the hitch of memory in Ixas's voice, "that way can lead to splinters." He settled in behind Eusebios, who could feel that awesome length pressed against the cleft of his buttocks, could feel its fiery heat, could feel Ixas's own fluid like a series of little wet kisses against his skin. "The oil, please," Ixas said.

Eusebios reached for the bowl and held it so Ixas could re-slick his hand, sighing in happy anticipation as it slid between his legs, brushing up against his sack, tickling along the gap between balls and anus. Twice more Ixas dipped his hand, rubbing the oil where it needed to go, and Eusebios could feel the heat pooling low in his groin, could feel his cock start to reawaken. Ixas dipped his hand a fourth time and slicked his own cock before driving it between Eusebios's thighs and beginning his thrusting, his hot breath panting across the juncture of Eusebios's neck and shoulder.

Keeping his own legs locked together firmly at the knees, of his own accord, Eusebios rocked his hips and laughed in delight as Ixas swore an oath to Aphrodite under his breath.

But Eusebios's triumph was short lived, for Ixas reached around, took Eusebios's half-hardness into his oil-slippery hand, cupping it loosely -- but not too loosely-- and chortled as Eusebios's eyes rolled back in his head and only inarticulate groans fell from his lips.

Together they rocked like that for long, luscious minutes, hardness thrusting through slick warmth, both of them, until Eusebios could no longer contain himself and came in a blinding rush, even better than the first time.

Moments later Ixas stiffened behind him, teeth chafing at his neck, mouth sucking hard, shaking like a leaf in a storm as he shot his own wetness between Eusebios's legs, the last spurt spilling against the cleft of Eusebios's ass.

Dazed, for he had not realized that it was possible to feel so good, Eusebios lay limp and sated as Ixas took a soft square of linen, dipped it in cool water, and tenderly cleaned Eusebios. "I'm not going to ask if you enjoyed that."

Eusebios groaned happily in reply.

Ixas smiled. "The philosophers also say that a large phallus --" both their eyes flicked down to what now lay quietly between Ixas's legs "is a less desirable trait in a man, for it allows a man's seed to cool too much when he gives it to a woman." Ixas snorted in derision. "As a solder, personally, I say it's best to deliver my troops as close as possible to the gates of her womb so they won't begin the assault weary from a long march. And --" he smiled even more broadly "I've yet to have any complaints from any who have shared my bed. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Y'know what I think, Eusebios? I think the philosophers have manhoods too small to properly pleasure a lover, and they never got hard as an erastes because they had such terribly unattractive or inept eromenoses."

Eusebios nodded in agreement.

Ixas climbed in next to him, pulling him close. "These philosophers of yours," he said voice low and urgent, "they also say there is shame in it when men full grown lay with each other like this."

Eusebios swallowed over the lump in his throat. He had also heard that, and now that he had experienced having Ixas as his lover, he did not want this thing between them, this sacred bond, to end. For it had to be a sacred bond, nothing that brought this much pleasure between two people could be mundane.

"But they are wrong, Eusebios," Ixas said. "This brings men like us, soldiers, closer together and forges bonds that nothing except death can break. Draco taught me this."

"There cannot be disgrace in it," Eusebios agreed as he soothed back sweat dampened locks of hair from Ixas's forehead, before kissing it. "If I am with you, if we are like this, there cannot be, ever."


End file.
